Sapa is a small town that has boomed for tourism in the last ten years. It's the home to to several ethnic minorities like the Hmong. They grow rice in beautiful terraces on the mountainside. We had amazing weather for the first two days. Warm during the day and pretty chilly at night. The third day, fog and rain rolled in during the night and the day stayed quite cold and the paths were quite muddy and slippery.
It's sad because the government doesn't do much to protect the tribes, and they live in extreme poverty. The tourism boom hasn't helped them as much as one would think because a ton of the money goes to Vietnamese-run restaurants, trekking companies, shops, and hotels. But the tribes do get loads of tourists trekking through their villages. Many of the women trek several kilometers a day to town to try to sell their wares or get tourists to come do an unofficial home stay. Both of these actions are illegal by the Vietnamese government and the women could get fined.
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| Working on her clothes for New Year |
She walked us all around for two and a half days, shared her home, cooked for us, and answered all sorts of random questions. It was really interesting getting to talk to her. She was talking about how it used to be the norm for couples to get married when the girl was as young as thirteen or fourteen. An arranged marriage of course. And she said that a lot of people wound up unhappy and even said something about suicides by eating a poison plant. That is changing though, with the governments pressure so that people are getting married older and having a bit more say in who they marry. The younger generations love this while the elder generation doesn't understand.
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| Cooking! |
The Hmong language isn't written, so My isn't super comfortable with reading or writing. When kids go to school they learn Vietnamese. Most kids in the villages stop after secondary school and go to work instead of high school. Most of the women we talked to had amazing English. Incredibly easy to understand. My just learned by talking to tourists for many years. I think because Hmong isn't written, she must have an amazing ear for languages. It was also hilarious to compare her climbing around on super slippery clay in rain boots looking at her phone or talking. Here I am concentrating so hard on putting my foot in the right spot and still sliding everywhere. I gave her a couple scares as a slipped and slid down the hills barely escaping a butt-plant several times.
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| MUD |
Talking to her makes me realize how spoiled I am to be in the position I am in. Most of the women are in charge of childcare, cooking, and farming rice. They also carry firewood or produce around if be create. The men do the heavy tasks like building houses or gathering firewood. And by gathering I mean cutting down a tree, chopping it up, putting it on a moto and splitting the logs at the house.
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| Our wonderful guide |
When I was asking her about marriages and mentioned divorce she said "Yes that does happen. But it's so much easier for the man than the woman." Of a man wants a divorce it can happen in days. If the woman wants a divorce it can take years. She then went on to tell us that when she and her husband were first married he went and got a girlfriend because she was skinny and small. Once she got fatter and his girlfriend was too old, he stopped seeing her and things got better. Then he loved her much more and now things are good. Cheyenne and I were both pretty stunned. "But My, weren't you jealous or angry?" She essentially said that yes she felt very sad lonely and angry at first. (She had to go live with her husbands family.) But that she got over it. That it didn't accomplish anything to be mad or jealous. She even said that she would say hi to her husband's older girlfriend.
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| My's youngest |
And here I am trying to figure out my perfect job. And what city will make me the happiest. Or maybe I should go back to school? Or fall in love and marry someone? We get so caught up in finding the perfect job, the perfect love, that we don't realize that having these choices is a luxury in its self. Lots of people don't have this option. Maybe this sounds corny, but it's just mind blowing to me. When I put myself in My's place, I'm not sure I could do it. And maintain the warm cheery personality she had. It's truly amazing. Although I do have to wonder what she thinks to meet two unmarried women in their twenties halfway across the world from their families trekking through her village. 😄
